Next time you come across a cow on a south Delhi road, don't get perturbed. Just take her to Municipal Corporation of Delhi's Malviya Nagar cattle pound and earn a neat Rs 2,000 in the bargain.

The Delhi high court on Thursday passed this innovative order to rid the city of stray cattle. A Division Bench of Chief Justice B C Patel and Justice Sanjay Kishan Kaul, which is monitoring the civic bodies' efforts to remove stray cattle from the capital, passed several directions.

The money given to a member of the public for catching a stray cattle would be recovered by auctioning the cattle.

Later, this experiment would be replicated in other zones of the capital too. Piqued over MCD's failure to remove stray cattle from the capital, the court had on Wednesday asked the civic body's south zone Deputy Commissioner Ajay Kumar to appear before it on Thursday.

The court directed Kumar, Veterinary Officer Dr Pradeep and two veterinary inspectors to launch an intensive campaign against stray cattle in the south zone.

If there was no visible change in the situation, these officers would be personally held responsible, the Bench said while fixing August 17 for further hearing.

It also directed MCD to publish advertisements in local newspapers giving mobile phone numbers of these officials and two dedicated landline numbers on which members of the public could give information on stray cattle to MCD anytime.

MCD counsel Najmi Waziri submitted a list of 72 unauthorised dairies and the court asked the Delhi police to take action against these dairies and help the agency in carrying out the court's directives.

On Wednesday, the court wanted the deputy commissioner to show cause why contempt proceedings should not be initiated against him for wilful non-compliance of its order.

Lamenting that MCD has failed to remove stray cattle from the city despite an order passed in December 2002, the court had said, "We are monitoring it only to see that the orders are implemented."

Justice Kaul had said that he himself counted 16 cows while driving on the road from Lady Sri Ram College to East of Kailash in the heart of the city.

"Same is the situation near All India Institute of Medical Sciences," he had observed and warned MCD officers not to take it in a very light manner.

Earlier, the court had set up a six-member panel which would file status reports after every two weeks before it.

Those on the panel are: Delhi government's Urban Development secretary, its divisional commissioner, MCD chairman, New Delhi Municipal Council chairperson, Delhi Police joint commissioner (Traffic) and vice chairmam of Delhi Development Authority.